revolutionary action movement (ram) - Michael Schwartz Library

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b . the transition period, 1964-1966 ;
c . the insurrection stage, 1967-1969 .
The movement in the sixties was not new ; instead, it was a continuation
of the black radical
tradition which had been part of the black liberation
movement since before the Civil War . Within this tradition were
various trends : emigration ; socialist revolution ; the creation of a black
republic in the United States ; revolutionary black nationalism ; plus vari
ations and combinations of all the above . The purpose here is not to give a
complete history of the black radical
tradition, but rather to highlight
those trends and organizations that provided a more direct historical
bearing
on the emergence of RAM .
Two major philosophical
strands within the black liberation movement
which seem to be in contradiction with one another, but are sometimes synthesize
by organizations, are Marxism and Black Nationalism . These philo
sophical strands are based on the historical conflict within the black
movement as to whether separation, integration or overthrow is the correct
strategy towards achieving liberation .
This conflict of whether to integrate
or separate or overthrow has a long history going back to the
classical
debates between Frederick Douglass, Martin Delany and Henry Highland
Garnet in the Colored People's Conventions in the early 1800's . I
With the
advent of the Civil War, black leaders put their ideological
debates in the background in
order to concentrate on destroying the chattel
slave system . After the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, the
North winning the Civil War, and the passing of the 13th, 14th, and 15th
1 Howard Holman Bell, A Surv ey of the Negro Convention Movement, 1830-
1861 (New York : Arno Press & New York Times, 1969) .